W.T. Cosgrave

William Thomas Cosgrave (6 June 1880-16 November 1965) was Taoiseach of the Irish Free State from 22 August 1922 to 9 March 1932, succeeding Michael Collins and preceding Eamon de Valera.

Biography
William Thomas Cosgrave was born in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland on 6 June 1880, and he was involved with Sinn Fein and the Irish Volunteers from the early 1900s, attending the party's 1905 convention. In 1916, he was sentenced to penal servitude for life in Wales after the failure of the Easter Rising, only to be released in 1917. Cosgrave was elected to Parliament as a Sinn Fein member, and he supported the creation of the Irish Free State, disagreeing with fellow Sinn Fein leaders such as Eamon de Valera, who opposed the peace treaty of 1921. Cosgrave was chosen to succeed Michael Collins as Chairman of the Provisional Government in 1922 after his assassination by the Irish Republican Army during the Irish Civil War, and Cosgrave led Ireland for ten years. He reluctantly decided to implement the death penalty in the Irish government, and 77 IRA leaders and members were summarily executed during the civil war. Cosgrave became one of the founders of the liberal Fine Gael party, opposing Valera's conservative Fianna Fail party, and he became leader of the opposition under De Valera's Fianna Fail government. Cosgrave died in 1965 at the age of 85.